India: Civil Rights or Civil War?

Human Rights

The recent series of bomb blasts that have rocked India – a series which has become a proverbial dark tunnel where no end is in sight – denote a new pattern. Till now communal riots were engineered by communal forces and the fascist part of the Indian state machinery to polarise society. This trend reached its apogee in the Gujarat 2002 riots.

The communal forces both inside and outside the Indian State machinery learnt some important lessons from Gujarat; chiefly that in this time and space, in the 21st century, it is very difficult to get away with organised pogroms – ultimately you have to pay a political price which the BJP did in the 2004 elections.

The communal forces then conjured a new phenomenon – why not start engineering bombs first in Hindu dominated areas, and then in Muslim areas?

The trend began with the July 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts in ‘Gujarati Hindu dominated’ first class compartments of the Mumbai metro rail; soon there were blasts in Muslim areas of Malegaon and Hyderabad.

In 2008, with elections just around the corner in April-May 2009, and the BJP getting relegated to the third position in electoral calculations in the post-nuclear deal vote phase, the bomb blast phenomenon has become endemic. From July 2008 at the time of writing this piece here have been several blasts – in the past week, blasts have occurred almost daily.

One thing is clear – it is not that bomb blasts are being engineered to create communal riots. That (communal riots following bomb blasts) simply has not happened – the new mantra seems to be of bomb blasts replacing communal riots. This means that if in the past riots were engineered to create communal polarisation the same kind of polarisation is being sought to be created by engineering bomb blasts.

So the pattern – 4 blasts in a Hindu dominated area; then one or two in a Muslim dominated area – Malegaon and Modesa after Bengaluroo, Ahmedabad and the two blasts in Delhi.

This is a foreign pattern for even Indian communal forces; this trend has been seen in areas where Mossad and CIA operate; a similar/exact phenomenon was seen in Lebanon where Beirut, a beautiful and cosmopolitan Asiatic city was turned into an arena of sectarian Muslim-Christian conflict with bomb blasts being engineered every day in respective Muslim-Christian areas, something which now even Hollywood films (see ‘Spy Game’) admit as a CIA ploy to destroy Lebanon.

The post-American invasion Iraq situation too sees a similar thing – of sectarian Shia-Sunni violence being generated by the bomb blast phenomenon, engineered by the CIA, private US mercenary firms like Blackwater and the US forces.

A third region is Pakistan where too blasts take place respectively, in Shia or Sunni, Sindhi or Mohajir, NWFP or Punjabi or Baluchi areas alternately and with regularity. Here the western game is clear – America and Israel have been working for decades to dismember Pakistan and control its nuclear arsenal.

India was spared of this ordeal till 1991 as Prime Ministers like Jawahar Lal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and even Rajiv Gandhi, did not allow Mossad-CIA penetration.

Before liberalisation during Narasimha Rao’s regime, Indian passport holders could not travel to two places: Israel and South Africa. India was at the forefront of the International crusade against apartheid and the denial of a homeland for Palestinians.

Why is it that after liberalisation, which was initiated soon after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, India recognised Israel and established diplomatic relations – and then the Babri Masjid demolition incident occurred?

So three things are related – liberalisation of the Indian economy, the change in Indian foreign policy from an anti-Imperialist, pro-Third World position to a pro-American, pro-Israel stance, and the increasing persecution of Muslims, in an institutionalised form.

See that these three developments occur side by side – and now in 2008 we see India being turned into another Lebanon.

Let this be very clear and loud – today, supporting the persecution and the arrest and the torture of thousands of Muslim youth, is tantamount to being anti-national. Today being anti-Muslim is tantamount to being anti-national.

What India needs today are not just protests – we need a special prevention of atrocities against minorities act – something which makes refusal of housing and flats to minorities, refusal by a Police officer to register an FIR by minorities, or to act in their protection, failure of a District Magistrate or a Senior Superintendent of the Police to prevent a riot or a bomb blast, the picking up of Muslims and other minorities without a formal charge, the very idea of detention of Muslim youths after blasts, or encounter killings, the calling of Muslims by the name Laandiya or Katua, a stringent crime with due punishment.

India already has a prevention of violence/atrocities against Scheduled Castes act – it is a crime to call a Dalit a Chamar; or not to register his or hers FIR. Why can’t a similar act, be enacted for the minorities?

In India the so-called war against terror, against SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen is a fictitious, bogus war – the recent bomb blasts were engineered by security forces, and foreign agencies and RSS-Bajrang Dal. The real war is against Muslim/minority persecution, the appropriate response to Batla House type fake encounter killing, and the extension of civil liberties guaranteed in the Indian Constitution. See the history of nations – in America and Europe mere constitutional guarantees were not enough – specific new laws had to be enacted from time to time to abolish slavery, protect minorities, and end persecution, segregation and racism.

America passed through its civil rights moment in the 1960s – India has to confront its own civil rights moment now. There is a simple message to Indian liberals – either support the demand for a special civil rights act for minorities or perish – for soon the fascist forces persecuting Muslims will turn against you.

If there is a civil war in India on this issue – so be the case; in any case with direct American intervention in Pakistan, conflict between America and India is very near. Liberals do not understand this but the Indian army does – so there is bound to be a double civil war in India – one against foreign intervention in the Indian sub-continent and the other against anti-national fascist forces.